


inside out and i'm without my heart

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, One Shot, Set in early Season 3, aka the world in which i desperately want to live, in the alternate universe where these two actually talk to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:52:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: “Rodriguez,” Dina says with a nod. “Good to see you getting back out there already. I figured you’d be at home moping over the fact that, even though your life has changed for the better, it’s still a ten-car pileup of a disaster.”Amy snatches her hand from Jonah’s leg. “Always a pleasure to see you, too.”





	inside out and i'm without my heart

**Author's Note:**

> The tags say it all, really. Except they don't thank Bethany. Thank you, Bethany.

“This has been some divorce party, huh?”

Amy stops poking at her dry slice of Cloud 9 bakery cake and looks up to find Jonah sliding into the seat next to her, a conspiratorial grin on his face.

“Every girl’s dream,” she says wryly, pressing her lips together to stop herself smiling back.

“I mean, this is kinda basic, but I guess that works for your marriage,” Cheyenne, who’s sitting on her other side, says. “If Bo and I ever get divorced, I’m gonna host one of those parties where everyone has to bring a pill to get in.”

“Y-yeah, sure,” Jonah says, and then turns his wide eyes on Amy.

Holding back her smile gets incrementally harder.

It’s just, things are still a little off-balance between the two of them. She hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that, since their tornado kiss, every exchange is loaded with subtext she doesn’t have the emotional fortitude to engage with.

So, maybe it’s just her having balance issues.

A lump forms in Amy’s throat, and she stabs her fork deep into the cement-like cake.

“Hey, are, uh, are you okay?” Jonah asks, leaning into her side so he can lower his voice.

She shakes her head, trying to indicate that he should leave it.

Before he can push, Dina gets to her feet, makes her way to the front of the break room, and starts tapping a plastic knife against her coffee mug.

“I’d like to make a toast.”

“Dina,” Amy warns, “that’s really not necessary.”

“‘Course it is,” Dina says. “You’re my best friend and you need a morale boost. Desperately.”

“I really don’t.”

“To Amy,” Dina says, raising her mug and ignoring her. “Her life may be coming apart at the seams, but at least she’s still good at her job.”

“Inspiring,” Jonah says, tipping his bottle of gross, green juice in her direction while everyone else around them toasts, “To Amy!”

“Do you want to say a few words?” Glenn asks, pouting out his lower lip at her sympathetically.

“Oh, no,” Amy says. “I’m really good.”

“Come on,” Marcus says from the back of the room. “Speech, speech, speech, speech!”

No one joins him.

Amy pretends to check her watch even though she’s been tracking the minutes as they’ve ticked away too slowly ever since Dina herded the employees into the break room. “I have to clock out soon anyway,” she says, holding up her wrist as proof. “So.”

“Well, just know that losing something as precious as a marriage doesn’t have to mean—”

“You heard her,” Dina says over Glenn’s coming platitudes. “Party’s over. Get back to work, people.”

Jonah trails behind her as she goes to clock out. “So.”

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asks, blinking his large, brown eyes at her.

“Don’t say whatever ‘go get ‘em champ’ speech you were planning on saying.”

“Do you feel like you need a pep talk?” he asks in an annoyingly knowing tone.

“I feel like I need everyone to stop treating me like a need a pep talk.”

“So what are you doing today?” Jonah asks.

Amy shoots him an unimpressed look.

“Y’know,” he hastens to add, “now that you’re off the clock on this completely unremarkable day.”

“Why?” she asks, eyes still narrowed in suspicion even while her heart lurches with interest.

He shrugs. “Just putting it out there, but if you feel like company, I have frozen pizzas—yes, I planned for any possible cheese errors—a box of Cloud 9 wine, and some rom-coms with your name on them.”

“But what about—?” Amy starts, holding her gratitude at bay.

“Garrett already said it was cool,” Jonah says, anticipating her question.

She considers the offer.

“Drop the rom-coms, and I’m there.”

“Done,” he says, miming a throat slice. “I get off in thirty.”

She finally lets go of the grin she’d been holding onto. “I’ll see you in an hour, then.”

###

Garrett’s the one who answers the door when Amy knocks, fifteen minutes past their agreed meet-up time.

She would have been punctual if she hadn’t found a pair of Adam’s pajama pants stuffed in the back of the closet while she was looking for something appropriate to wear and promptly freaked out.

“Hey,” Garrett says, wheeling back to let her inside.

“Hi.”

“I’d ask how you’re holding up,” he says, sounding almost bored, “but I honestly don’t care that much.”

“And I really appreciate that,” she says earnestly.

He nods at her.

After a moment, she asks, “So, um, where’s Jonah?”

“Probably still looking for the shirt that strikes the right ‘vibe’,” Garrett says, using air quotes around the last word.

Amy rolls her eyes, but still. Her stomach gives a pleasant, little low-down tug.

“You wound him up didn’t you?”

“It’s just so easy,” Garrett says with a grin. “Besides, I gotta get something out of this arrangement.”

“Oh, well, as long as you feel bad about it,” she says with a mock reprimand.

“You know me.”

Amy _hmm_ s in agreement, her eyes wandering around the front room. They land on the large stack of Xbox games piled next to the television. She snorts when she notices what’s on top.

“You have Star Wars Battlefront? Okay, nerd.”

Garrett scoffs. “Star Wars is part of the zeitgeist, alright? Being a fan hardly makes me a nerd.”

“Whatever you say, Jonah.”

“Oh, I know you did not just imply that I’m anywhere near that high-strung about the things I like.”

“Well, when you use words like _zeitgeist_ to defend your interests…”

“Hey, guys,” Jonah says, stepping into the room. “What’s going on here?”

He’s wearing a dark blue plaid button-down shirt that, admittedly, looks nice on him. Still, Amy’s seem him wear it for dozens of shifts at the store. She smiles inwardly.

“I was just about to school Amy at Battlefront,” Garrett says.

“Oh,” Jonah says, “you’re gonna—you’re, uh, joining us, then? Cool. Cool. That’s cool.”

Amy feels like a pressure lifts from between her eyes at the same time her stomach flips at Jonah’s evident displeasure.

“Bring it on,” she says to Garrett, and then turns with raised eyebrows to Jonah.

His features soften into a resigned smile when their eyes meet. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Bring it on.”

###

“Aren’t Stormtroopers kinda Nazi analogues?” Jonah asks twenty minutes later, his eyes fixed on the screen even though he’s not playing. “Seems unfair that you have to play as them half the time.”

He’s sitting cross-legged on the couch next to Amy, his knee resting against her thigh.

The contact, minimal though it is, sends heat burning through Amy’s cheeks whenever she thinks about it, which makes her grateful for the distraction the game provides.

“Dude, name a popular franchise that doesn’t have a Nazi analogue,” Garrett says, and then adds a, “Take that, Rebel scum!” as he kills a couple people on the rival team in quick succession.

“My objection isn’t that Nazi analogues exist,” Jonah starts to say.

At the same time, Amy supplies, “High School Musical.”

The rest of Jonah’s comment gives way to an amused laugh. “That’s your go-to example?”

“Imma let you have this on account of your kid,” Garrett says.

Amy clucks her tongue. “I can’t believe both of you are trying to pretend like you don’t know all the words to all the songs.”

“I do not,” Garrett says. “There are like, dozens.”

“I can do the dance from the end of the first one,” Jonah says sheepishly.

She grabs hold of his knee, totally forgetting about the game in her excitement. “Are you serious?”

Jonah nods with mock solemnity, a grin playing on the edge of his lips. “My cousin’s bat mitzvah was High School Musical-themed. We learned it to surprise her.”

“Do it or you’re lying,” Garrett says, switching off the game and taking out his phone.

“I—that’s—I don’t—” Jonah breaks off with a cough, and then says, “I probably don’t even remember it. It was a few years ago.”

“Jonah,” Amy says, looking him square in the eye and squeezing his leg. Blood rushes up into his cheeks and that makes her fumble and drop the rest of her demand.

“I’d have to, y’know, stretch first, and it’d just—it’d be this whole thing.”

“I won’t give you crap about the weird-ass food you bring into my house for a whole week if you do the dance,” Garrett says.

That gives him pause. “Compelling offer…”

“Come on,” Amy goads, jostling him.

Jonah opens his mouth to say something, but the sound of someone unlocking the front door has all three of them whipping their heads around.

“Dina?” Amy asks when she’s the one to push it open. “What are you doing here?”

“Rodriguez,” Dina says with a nod. “Good to see you getting back out there already. I figured you’d be at home moping over the fact that, even though your life has changed for the better, it’s still a ten-car pileup of a disaster.”

Amy snatches her hand from Jonah’s leg. “Always a pleasure to see you, too.”

Dina salutes her and then jerks her chin at Garrett. “You ready to go?”

He tosses his controller to Jonah, who grabs it out of the air just in time to stop it hitting him in the face and sets it down on the coffee table.

“You didn’t mention you’d be leaving,” Jonah says.

“Do you want me to hang around?” Garrett asks, pausing in the act of pulling on his shoes.

“No!” Jonah says sharply, then clears his throat. “I mean, no, it’s, uh, it’s cool. I’m cool.”

Garrett raises his eyebrows. “Sure you are, buddy.”

“Yeah, we’ll probably be gone for a while,” Dina says meaningfully, holding eye contact with Amy, who gives an uncomfortable little cough. “Garrett owes me two orgasms as it stands, and who knows where the evening will take us after that.”

“That’s…nice,” Amy says.

“Yeah it is,” Dina agrees.

“Okay,” Garrett says, clearly ready for the conversation to end.

But Dina’s not done. “Feel free to take your time, is all I’m saying.”

Jonah lets out a nervous titter. “That’s—I mean, how generous of you to…so, um, have fun.”

“You, too,” Garrett says in a mockingly sweet voice as he goes to leave, forcing Dina to step out of the doorway, but not before she winks at Amy.

“That’s not—” Jonah starts as soon as the door falls shut. “I didn’t invite you over to—”

“Jonah, it’s fine,” she says, feeling a confusing rush of mingled chagrin and excitement.

“No, I know, it’s just that you _just_ …and I wouldn’t, uh. Because it’s not like we—”

If pressed, Amy could always justify her actions with the simple fact that there are very few ways to staunch Jonah’s anxious rambling once he really gets going. But, if she’s being honest with herself, she knows the real reason she kisses him then is simply because she wants to, complications and awkwardness be damned.

Very unlike their first kiss, he responds immediately and with an eagerness that snatches her breath away and sends her heart thrumming in her chest. She finds herself tipping back against the arm of the couch at the force of his lips on hers and grabs onto his shoulders to anchor herself to him.

In response, Jonah works an arm clumsily around her waist and leans into her, drawing a gasp from her lungs and forcing her to bow her body against his.

When that causes her back to twinge unpleasantly, Amy presses forward, intent on straddling Jonah’s lap.

He jerks his mouth away from hers, though. “W-wait, wait. I, um, hold on.”

Surprise pulls her up short. “What? What’s wrong? Was it the teeth, cause I was just—”

“No, that’s—I appreciate the, uh. No.” He pauses, wincing. “I just, I need to know this isn’t another, erm, life preserver moment.”

She frowns. “A what?”

“You know, like…” He trails off, licking his lips. Amy tracks the movement before forcing her eyes up to his just as he lets out the rest of his thought in one long puff, “Like, you’re drowning and you need something to hold onto and I’m there, available, like a-a life preserver.”

She absorbs the metaphor, a stab of guilt deep in her stomach.

“My divorce was only finalized yesterday,” she says, hating the words even as they pass her lips.

Because she feels her own unreadiness deep in her stomach. It’s there alongside whatever irresistible and yet-unnamed _thing_ she feels for Jonah.

“Uh-huh,” Jonah says, “uh-huh. Right.”

Amy shifts on the couch, drawing her legs into herself and wrapping her arms around her knees.

He withdraws, too, snatching his arm back and ducking his head.

She watches him for a long moment, watches the way he rubs and twists at the ring finger of his right hand.

“But it’s not like it’s as simple as that,” she says, drawing comfort and bravery from the familiar gesture. This is _Jonah_ , after all, the man who, somewhere in their two years of working together, became her best friend.

He looks up at her.

“I’m not…I don’t keep kissing you just because you’re there. It’s because you’re, well, you.”

The look of naked hope that flashes across his face leaves her feeling dizzy.

“So let’s give it some time?” he asks, his voice high with that same transparent hope.

“Time is a good idea,” Amy agrees.

They sit in a tense silence for a few beats, feeling out all the sudden shifts their relationship just went through.

Jonah, thankfully, is the one to break it. “Garrett’s going to be relieved we didn’t have sex in his apartment.”

Amy snorts. “I don’t know,” she says with a sidelong glance. “I feel like maybe the only reason he offered in the first place was to hold it over our heads.”

“There’s something to that,” Jonah agrees with a thoughtful frown.

“Right? I can just see him, every time I ask him to hop on register, pulling out the old ‘remember that time I lent you my apartment so you could bang it out with Jonah’ card.”

“I mean, by that measure, he could hold this over our heads anyway.”

“Yeah, but I feel like the fact that we didn’t take advantage means we don’t owe him anything.”

“Try making that case to Garrett.”

They both laugh, their eyes meeting. Jonah swallows hard, and then ducks his head again, back to fidgeting with his own hands.

“Hey,” Amy says.

He looks back up.

“Thanks for the pep talk, coach,” she says, nudging him in the shoulder with her own. “It made all the difference today.”

A wide smile overtakes his face, like sunshine breaking out from between rain-heavy clouds. “Yeah?”

If he keeps smiling at her like that, she’s not gonna need much time at all, she thinks.

“Yeah.”


End file.
